Chiltern Oxford Link completed

davetheguard · 11 Apr 2013

Thanks for the clarifying the legal position jimm.

The reason I made my comments about the Chiltern Evergreen website not being updated is clear if you visit the site and click on "News & Events":

Latest update 6 Jan 2010.

I rest my case. (To be fair a date of 2012 is mentioned on another page at the site, but even that is hardly up to date when we are now almost half way through April 2013).

RailUK Forums

joeykins82 · 11 Apr 2013

As long as the project is pending legal approval there isn't much to add really; I expect Chiltern will revamp the whole site as soon as all of the hurdles are clear and the works can begin. The majority of info on there is geared towards "please support our planning application" so once it's done it'll get reworked as a more general marketing site with live updates of the construction progress. At least that's what I'd do if I did their marketing

.

js47604 · 11 Apr 2013

Last proposed timetable to Network Rail was;

1 per hour Marylebone-High Wyc-Princes Ris-Bicester-Water Eaton-Oxford
1 per hour Marylebone-High Wyc-Had & Thame-Bicester-Water Eaton-Oxford

Andyjs247 · 11 Apr 2013

Last time I travelled from Bicester Town in March there was an unofficial notice at the station which said that the line line would probably close in the near future, i.e. late April / early May for up to 2 years. The ticket inspector was also telling passengers that he expected the line to close from the May timetable change. [At that time it was expected/hoped that an announcement regarding the outcome of the judicial review would be made before Easter]

Clearly we are still awaiting the result of the judicial review so things are still up in the air and there has been no official announcement. Chiltern Railways (no doubt as a result of pressure from OBRAG - the Oxford to Bicester Rail Action Group) has subsequently stated that they will give 12 weeks notice regarding any closure for rebuilding. According to OBRAG (article here) closure is unlikely before August; this would be assuming a positive outcome of the judicial review of course. If you check e.g. realtime trains you can find timings for services in May and June (in fact up to early October).

Today's Oxford Mail leading article concerns rail passenger growth - "As passenger numbers double commuters want work on new Oxford station sped up". Passenger numbers using Oxford have more than doubled since 1997-98 and there have also been huge increases in Bicester (471% increase at Bicester Town - 35% increase in the last year).

The article only mentions that Chiltern Railways "hopes to create" a second Oxford-London link but does indicate that an announcement regarding Oxford Station redevelopment is expected "in the next few days". So all very positive but still little concrete information at the moment.

swt_passenger · 11 Apr 2013

How about this for little more than scaremongering from that OBRAG link though:

It remains unclear whether the Oxford Area Remodelling, starting in 2015 will or will not require continued closure of our line. While Chilterns Network Development Manager (Richard Harper) believes it will not, it is hard to see how Network Rail can manage all the construction with a service from Bicester into Oxford still running.

Presumably they haven't noticed what's been going on with the vastly more complex rebuilding at Reading? :roll:

Eagle · 11 Apr 2013

swt_passenger said:
Presumably they haven't noticed what's been going on with the vastly more complex rebuilding at Reading? :roll:

Yes, but closing Reading for several months would cripple the rail network. Closing what is currently a small infrequently-served branchline wouldn't.

It's almost certainly easier and/or faster and/or cheaper to do reconstruction on a line by closing it (it's just that for somewhere as major as Reading that was not an option).

swt_passenger · 11 Apr 2013

He's talking hypothetically though about the station remodelling requiring a further closure beyond that already required to reconstruct the line. From information I have received privately, all the major Oxford station work takes place on the down side. There's no logical reason for the works to affect the Bicester route that I can see.

route:oxford · 11 Apr 2013

Will access be maintained to the MOD supplies base at Bicester?

I suppose it would work if the new curve/chord were opened first.

The Planner · 11 Apr 2013

Yes, access has to be maintained. The biggest issue at the mo is the length of diversion via the Chilterns and Claydon and pathing them. The curve wasn't part of the plan, but it is rumoured they may change the schedule so the curve goes in a lot earlier and the diversions are a bit more palatable.

Andyjs247 · 11 Apr 2013

route:oxford said:
Will access be maintained to the MOD supplies base at Bicester?

I suppose it would work if the new curve/chord were opened first.

Even when the through passenger service is suspended I think they may need to retain some partial freight access to one end of the route or the other. I don't know for certain, but I guess that the MOD access will be maintained. However the Bicester chord is not necessary for this as it would be possible to run via Aylesbury and Claydon LNE Junction instead of via Oxford. I think there may have been some freight diverted via Aylesbury and Bicester Town during the recent closure of Reading.

There is also freight to the Banbury Road stone terminal which also normally runs via Oxford. The freight terminal is due to be relocated as the current site is required for construction of Water Eaton Parkway station. If required, stone trains could also run either via Oxford or Claydon.

Recently there has been some freight from Didcot to Calvert, but now that Didcot A power station has closed this traffic probably will not continue for much longer (though if required diversion would be possible via Aylesbury).

jimm · 12 Apr 2013

swt_passenger said:
He's talking hypothetically though about the station remodelling requiring a further closure beyond that already required to reconstruct the line. From information I have received privately, all the major Oxford station work takes place on the down side. There's no logical reason for the works to affect the Bicester route that I can see.

But talking hypothetically with good reason. Oxford area alterations are far more complex than just the station - which will include work on the up side to provide at least one, perhaps two bay platforms for Chiltern services - the Evergreen3 scheme allows for two but a scheme displayed by Network Rail recently at a public meeting in Oxford showed just one.

There will be two phases of track and resignalling work in the Oxford area. The first will be a basic largely like for like resignalling with immunised equipment to get ready for GW electrification. The second phase will see a long-term new layout implemented and this will include a new Oxford North junction to handle East West traffic, so pretty major stuff, and still in the planning mix, so further Bicester service suspensions, albeit not of the length that is looming shortly should the legal issues be cleared up, cannot be ruled out at some point.

Chiltern have been clear right from the off that freight access to MoD Bicester would be maintained pretty much throughout the construction phase, similarly at Oxford Banbury Road, which is right next to the site for Water Eaton Parkway station. And the relocation here simply consists of shifting the sidings and stone storage area a short distance to the east, with a new access off the park-and-ride site's feeder road.

Andyjs247 said:
The article only mentions that Chiltern Railways "hopes to create" a second Oxford-London link but does indicate that an announcement regarding Oxford Station redevelopment is expected "in the next few days". So all very positive but still little concrete information at the moment.

What else can they say? You can't say Evergreen 3 is definitely going ahead - or gets held up again - until the judge actually makes a ruling and Network Rail are going to announce something about Oxford soon - hard to say anything concrete until their proposals become clear.

Waddon · 12 Apr 2013

I don't know for certain, but I think the delays on this scheme (not including the legal challenges) are probably due to the fact that there are four (possibly 5) rail schemes here all impacting on each other, Evergreen 3, east-west, Oxford rebuild (and electrification) and HS2.

Chiltern won't want to build and open their more limited line, build up the customer base and then have to close it after a few months for extensive rebuilds to increase capacity for east-west or the Oxford rebuild thereby destroying their newly built-up customer base.

East west on the other hand has to be engineered to go up and over HS2, and in my opinion there is no chance of this major work being given the go-ahead before other major work on HS2 is given the go ahead... plus on a purely administrative level there are probably dozens of different organistions trying hard right now to work with each other and get their schemes and budgets synched together, so I can't imagine anything is going to be simple, and therefore it's all going to take a long time, much longer than if it was just evergreen 3 on it's own

jimm · 12 Apr 2013

Waddon said:
I don't know for certain, but I think the delays on this scheme (not including the legal challenges) are probably due to the fact that there are four (possibly 5) rail schemes here all impacting on each other, Evergreen 3, east-west, Oxford rebuild (and electrification) and HS2.

Chiltern won't want to build and open their more limited line, build up the customer base and then have to close it after a few months for extensive rebuilds to increase capacity for east-west or the Oxford rebuild thereby destroying their newly built-up customer base.

East west on the other hand has to be engineered to go up and over HS2, and in my opinion there is no chance of this major work being given the go-ahead before other major work on HS2 is given the go ahead... plus on a purely administrative level there are probably dozens of different organistions trying hard right now to work with each other and get their schemes and budgets synched together, so I can't imagine anything is going to be simple, and therefore it's all going to take a long time, much longer than if it was just evergreen 3 on it's own

Of course various things are impacting on each other but if the public inquiry/TWA procedure had been faster, Chiltern might have been digging things up this time last year - or even earlier.

When they first unveiled the Evergreen3 plan, it was meant to be running as early as 2012, long before anything was meant to happen to the rest of Oxford station and was designed to be 'sealed off' from the main line, with its own approach line and new platforms. It then got overtaken by the Government's unexpected adoption of East West Rail, which wasn't on anyone's radar and forced a rethink of the whole approach to the Oxford area. Once Oxford-Marylebone trains start running they will keep on running but there will likely have to be the odd short blockade to do work at Oxford North/the station and implement electrification for East-West.

Why do you think they can't decide how East West will cross the HS2 route until HS2 decisions are made? The HS2 map for the area is clearly marked "New Possible Permanent Realignment of East West Railway over HS2" - suggesting that they know what they want to do and given that East West is now in detailed planning I think they will just stick in a bridge at the appropriate spot and get on with building East West. Near where I live there is a bypass opened in 1998 which included a road overbridge over a disused trackbed to allow the GWSR to eventually reach Honeybourne, which will be a while yet...

There is a work schedule in place - judge permitting. Evergreen3 and East West work is to be carried out in a single phase between Oxford and Bicester 2013-15 (an Evergreen3-only closure was projected at 12 to 15 months). East West work carries on east of Bicester 2015-17 with a targeted December 2017 opening of East West using diesel traction, with electrification following in 2019.

Waddon · 12 Apr 2013

jimm said:
Why do you think they can't decide how East West will cross the HS2 route until HS2 decisions are made? The HS2 map for the area is clearly marked "New Possible Permanent Realignment of East West Railway over HS2" - suggesting that they know what they want to do

I didn't say they can't decide, I think that east-west will be delayed specifically because of the need to build that bridge... the word 'possible' in the above quote is the reason... HS2 is very political, so there is still plenty of time for the route to be tweaked and adjusted before construction begins, to appease local interest groups (and probably during construction too) so to build a bridge over nothing would force the alignment of HS2 through that exact spot, or lead to costly and embarrasing rebuilding after the fact. At the moment I imagine the unspoken status of HS2 in parliament is 'this is the route it's taking, but we can probably accommodate minor changes to appease local voters'

Not to mention the funding of it being likely to come from the HS2 budget rather than the east-west budget. To be fair it's just a supposition on my part but my feeling is that it will work that way, with both being constructed at the same time

jimm · 12 Apr 2013

Waddon said:
I didn't say they can't decide, I think that east-west will be delayed specifically because of the need to build that bridge... the word 'possible' in the above quote is the reason... HS2 is very political, so there is still plenty of time for the route to be tweaked and adjusted before construction begins, to appease local interest groups (and probably during construction too) so to build a bridge over nothing would force the alignment of HS2 through that exact spot, or lead to costly and embarrasing rebuilding after the fact. At the moment I imagine the unspoken status of HS2 in parliament is 'this is the route it's taking, but we can probably accommodate minor changes to appease local voters'

Not to mention the funding of it being likely to come from the HS2 budget rather than the east-west budget. To be fair it's just a supposition on my part but my feeling is that it will work that way, with both being constructed at the same time

Did you miss the ruling on HS2 the other week? The only aspect the judge criticised was compensation schemes. The route has been tweaked already and the route around Calvert has never been controversial anyway. It's in the middle of the countryside with a waste site next to it, not a town.

They are not going to delay east-west for HS2 - you build the bridge and get on with it and guard against likley future requirements for HS2- you will have to do this to run trains in 2017. And why would it have to come out of the HS2 budget? See my comment about the A44 Broadway bypass bridge above. Worcestershire county council paid for it, not the GWSR.

Chris B · 12 Apr 2013

Waddon said:
Chiltern won't want to build and open their more limited line, build up the customer base and then have to close it after a few months for extensive rebuilds to increase capacity for east-west or the Oxford rebuild thereby destroying their newly built-up customer base.

That is *exactly* OBRAGs fear - that Chiltern would prefer for all the Oxford resignalling work (which *does* inpact on the junction at the Oxford line onto the main line - the one the freight use) to be added into the closure & thus lengthen it....

The work had already gone from around 12-15 months to nearly 24 for the EWR work (which the DfT has already instructed *will* be done at the same time). With the delays on the judicial review, the resignalling (which will also be moved forward now as it needs doing *before* electrification works around Oxford can commence) - there is the distinct possibility that yes, a further increase in closure length is necessary.

The line works will also include putting up the supports for the electric wires for EWR too....

Finally, Chiltern were pushed into agreeing to confirm that at least 12 weeks (the required minimum) will be given. Of course, that is already way beyond the May TT change date. Ian East at OBRAG is correct in his blog...there is a real fear it could go over 2 years in total.

There has been talk of Chiltern starting their MYB service from Water Eaton once their works are complete, while the Oxford Resignalling works are carried out. I think that is a real possibility.

The judge has appeared already once for the review. "Right, I'll look at this" was his comment, banged his gavel & walked away. So we're still waiting for it to be reconvened. There is a lot of road-lobby money financing this through one resident in Sommertown. If he wins, be warned, the decision will definitely have ramifications elsewhere.

Railcar B · 12 Apr 2013

Waddon said:
East west on the other hand has to be engineered to go up and over HS2, and in my opinion there is no chance of this major work being given the go-ahead before other major work on HS2 is given the go ahead...

Why should East-West have to be taken up and over HS2? HS2 at this point is planned to be on the alignment of the former Great Central Railway which itself went up and over the East-West line. It would be pointless, and unnecessarily expensive to create a hump-back alignment on the E-W line, when the existing alignment is fine for HS2 to cross over the E-W. It only needs a new bridge over the E-W alignment, raised slightly to cater for 21st Century electrification and container clearances.

The Oxford-Bletchley line came first. Hence when the GCR line was built at the end of the 19th century, it was logical to align it over thw E-W line rather than burrow under it(much more expensive).

The Planner · 12 Apr 2013

The plan is for E-W to go over HS2 on a new bridge as HS2 will be in a small cutting there with some sizeable retaining walls. It requires road closures and new road bridges too. Calvert tip sidings will move to the other side of the tracks to where they are now.

swt_passenger · 12 Apr 2013

Railcar B said:
Why should East-West have to be taken up and over HS2? HS2 at this point is planned to be on the alignment of the former Great Central Railway which itself went up and over the East-West line. It would be pointless, and unnecessarily expensive to create a hump-back alignment on the E-W line, when the existing alignment is fine for HS2 to cross over the E-W. It only needs a new bridge over the E-W alignment, raised slightly to cater for 21st Century electrification and container clearances...

The original HS2 drawings do show the existing line being raised over the top of HS2. It might be easier to keep the vertical curvature of HS2 within its limits for 200 mph running by doing it that way - they'd need correspondingly longer to rise and fall than EWR will. Also, although HS2 is following the GC for some of its horizontal alignment on that section, it may not be staying at the same height/level as the GC.

The bottom of this drawing shows the profile of HS2 in the vicinity: http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/hs2-maps-20120110/hs2arp00drrw05013issue3.pdf

Railcar B · 12 Apr 2013

Well, I stand corrected. It may be that the original HS2 plans didn't allow for East-West to be re-opened. If HS2 crosses the E-W alignment in a shallow cutting that would put it near the existing level of the E-W line. Then indeed you would have to take E-W over the top of HS2. Indeed some of the road crossings may end up going under E-W rather than over it.

However, since E-W is scheduled to be completed in 2017, that will be well ahead of HS2 being completed. Is the cost of taking E-W over HS2 factored into the E-W budget, or will it be charged to HS2?

twoag · 8 May 2013

I went past yesterday and they have cleared all the lineside vegetation between the two lines where the new curve is to go in.

Does this mean all the legal hurdles are resolved or is this just prep work?

Nice to see something happening finally.

The Ham · 8 May 2013

twoag said:
I went past yesterday and they have cleared all the lineside vegetation between the two lines where the new curve is to go in.

Does this mean all the legal hurdles are resolved or is this just prep work?

Nice to see something happening finally.

Probably just prep work, as vegetation tends to have to be cleared outside of the nesting season.

Chris B · 8 May 2013

Prep work indeed.

The judge is still to give is decision on the appeal.

Chiltern commented that this guy may then still be able to appeal the appeal too. But they would probably be minded to start work if the result of this appeal goes in their favour.

twoag · 8 May 2013

The Ham said:
Probably just prep work, as vegetation tends to have to be cleared outside of the nesting season.

I would have thought we were right in nesting season now, but I am no Birdwatcher

.

Prep work as I thought.. thanks all...

Chris B · 8 May 2013

I think they finished it a couple of weeks back. All the machines have since disappeared.

mwmbwls · 8 May 2013

twoag said:
I would have thought we were right in nesting season now, but I am no Birdwatcher .

Prep work as I thought.. thanks all...

Leigh Busway prep ran for 16 weeks from the 6th December - so up to the first two weeks in April appears to be permitted.

The Planner · 16 May 2013

My sources say there should be a decision from the judge tomorrow.

SprinterMan · 16 May 2013

The Planner said:
My sources say there should be a decision from the judge tomorrow.

Excellent new, hopefully it is in favour of Chiltern. Please post the result on here

The Planner · 17 May 2013

High Court has rejected the judicial challenge so Chiltern can crack on with it.

Chris B · 17 May 2013

Email from Graham Cross at Chiltern giving further info....

From: Graham Cross
Sent: 17 May 2013 10:27
To: Graham Cross
Subject: Rail Upgrade Bicester to Oxford Route, High Court Verdict

Dear Stakeholder,

I am pleased to confirm that the High Court has today decided to reject the judicial challenge into the Secretary of State for Transport’s making of the Chiltern Railways Bicester to Oxford Transport & Works Act Order. Therefore the statutory powers and permissions which we hold to upgrade the rail route remain intact.

Subject to Board and regulatory approvals, we now plan to conclude project and commercial agreements with Network Rail and the Department for Transport next month, whereupon construction works will begin.

It is our current expectation that Chiltern Railways train services will begin operating between London Marylebone and the new parkway station for Oxford at Water Eaton, via the upgraded station beside Bicester Village, from the summer of 2015. Services will then extend through to Oxford in the Spring of 2016.

For now the existing Bicester Town to Oxford Chiltern Railways service will continue unaffected. We expect that the line will need to close for intrusive construction works in February 2014. Twelve weeks before the start of the closure we will advise passengers of the duration of the closure and the alternative arrangements which we will provide.

May I take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in and contribution towards the project to upgrade rail services between Bicester and Oxford. We are obviously very pleased with the Court’s decision.

Graham Cross

Business Development Director
Chiltern Railways

Chiltern Oxford Link completed

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